Marc Jesmond - 8. Chapter 8 'The auction'

The night may have been magical, but the following morning was dull reality, and Leon had withdrawn into his shell, closing down most of the conversation in the process. Breakfast was a silent affair. Marc rose and began to clear away the dishes,

‘At least let me give you a lift back to your apartment’

‘No thanks, I don’t mind walking’

‘I’m not trying to find out where you live, I’ll drop you by the...

‘Everybody knows where I live. It’s where all the other guys live, in the middle of the triangle. Why do you make me feel like I’m hiding it?’

Leon was trembling. Marc did his best to calm things, but he was impelled to discover more. How else could he help the boy?

‘Leon, I think you live with somebody, and you still have feelings for him. I just want you to know that I understand’

‘It’s not like that. He’s not my boyfriend; he’s never been my boyfriend’

Marc was beginning to feel that everything he asked would be resented,

‘Well, just...., just take care, OK? Will I see you again?’

The boy nodded silently.

There was little more to be said. They parted, kissing, but without the warmth that a perfect day and intimate night had conferred on their earlier kisses. And Marc felt wretched as he watched his young, vulnerable lover walk away.

But he couldn’t afford to mope. He had an auction to attend; and the painful duty of witnessing his home disappearing under the hammer, and being sold off cheap, in accordance with the provisions of his mother’s will. He’d rather hoped Leon would be there to offer him support. As it was, that was now a forlorn hope.

But, as he rushed around, dressing and mentally juggling a million things, Marc could not stop thinking about the boy; he was convinced that Leon was living with and being bullied by somebody, but who? Who had sent him out to sell sex the other night, and who had kept back £40 of the money Marc had given him?

Then it came to him.

Urgently logging online Marc navigated his way through the website, searching urgently under escorts for ‘Noel’. He’d make a note of the mobile contact number, and ring whoever ‘Noel’ was.

Then it flashed onto his screen.

‘Noel. Invalid profile’

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But if things were depressing for Marc they were no better for Leon. Arriving back at his apartment, the one person he could never rely on to be there when needed, was now there when not wanted.

‘Where the fuck have you been, or shouldn’t I ask?’

Leon said nothing and began to make a coffee,

‘I’m talking to you, fuck wit! How can I look out for you if you don’t tell me where you’re going?’

Leon coloured,

‘You don’t have to look out for me. I’m alright’

‘Alright? Don’t make me fuckin’ laugh! You wouldn’t last two minutes out on those streets, you sad little shoe-talker. You need me to keep an eye on you’

‘No I don’t’ spluttered Leon, petulantly,

Glen switched gear from anger to insinuation,

‘Oh, I see, could that be because you’ve found someone else, then?’

‘Just leave me alone. It’s not your business. You shouldn’t be here, you know that. It’s my flat, meant to be for me, just me’

‘Oh, I get it. And you want me to go?’

Leon held his ground,

‘Yes, I want you to go. Find somewhere else and leave me alone’

Glen Roberts’ eyes flashed with malice, and suppressed rage,

‘OK. I’ll do that. I’ll find somewhere else, and get out of this filthy, stinking, little shithole’

Then he walked up to Leon and stood right in his face,

‘And you, YOU can go an’ fuck yourself, sad little cunt!’

Roberts left, slamming the door, and Leon sat down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands.

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Smallbone & Tightpurse, auctioneers and valuers had occupied the same premises in the city centre for generations. Strange then, that when Marc made his way to the familiar auction room it had a rather unfamiliar air. For instead of the anticipatory babble of a room of excited purchasers, there was damp, sepulchral gloom.

Marc looked about him wondering what to do. Finding the reception area he rang the bell; nothing. After some time an old man in overalls, who’d been interrupted in the act of cleaning, shuffled in,

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘I’m here for the property auction. I’m sure I’ve got the right day. But I thought it was 12.30. And there’s nobody here’

The old man shrugged,

‘It’s been switched, last minute. Don’t know where. I think they said it would be in one of those big hotels’

Marc felt his stomach loop the loop; more misery, but now there was an added dimension. These horrors weren’t happening by accident.

‘Can I use your ‘phone?’

Well, I’ve been told that....’

‘Never mind. Of course I can’t, that’s all part of this conspiracy, isn’t it?’

Grabbing his mobile Marc stabbed out the number for Haddaway & Crappe. Then his quick brain ran on ahead. ‘I’m going to ask for Gerald Campfire, and they’re going to tell me he’s out to lunch, and don’t know when he’s expected back’ After what seemed an eternity, Haddaways’ receptionist answered. Marc asked to speak directly to Terrence Haddaway.

‘Marc Jesmond here. I understand the property auction is taking place right now. But I’m not present, because the venue’s changed. Do you know anything about it?’

Haddaway seemed as surprised as Marc, and asked the latter to hold while he consulted his diary.

‘Yes, Marc. You’re right. My diary was updated at, let me see, 11.58 this morning by Gerald. The venue was changed to the Blanchland Suite at Grand Western, starting 12.45. Are you anywhere near there?’

‘No I’m fucking not!’ shouted Marc enraged, ‘and I have no chance of getting over there now’

He shut down his phone, left the building and sprinted down the street in the direction of the hotel.

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As he sat, lunching in the opulent surroundings of his barristers’ chambers, Robin Parnaby mused over the odd instruction given him that very morning by his partner Gerald. ‘Make sure you’re seen in the restaurant at chambers’ he’d advised. ‘We may both need to be able to prove we were nowhere near Smallbone & Tightpurse’s auction’. The barrister, smart enough to know that knowledge is complicity, asked no questions.

In fact Robin Parnaby didn’t like auctions; much too vulgar. And he wasn’t too bothered about money either, so long as he had a ready supply. But he did like criminals, the harder and more vicious the better; for they were his bread and butter. And, as a defence barrister, he’d realised long ago that he could pass his days facilitating the freedom of some of the most evil men alive, and charge the gullible British taxpayer eye-watering fees for the privilege of so doing.

Robin Parnaby had a nephew, a feckless creature whose only contact with his uncle was to call him when his university fees needed topping up. The young man lived near London and the two rarely communicated. But oddly enough Gerald had asked for the boy’s number several days ago. Whatever for? And now this bizarre property auction that Gerald was trying to distance them both from. What could he be up to?

What indeed?

For unknown to both the barrister and his nephew, it was a very odd auction that was taking place, and though the nephew didn’t yet know it, he was only minutes away from becoming the owner of a riverside duplex in a city he’d never visited.

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They made an unlikely pair, the leather-jacketed twenty something and the business-suited executive. But Glen Roberts and Gerald Campfire had both agreed to this meeting believing they would find what they were looking for. The law clerk motioned Glen to take a seat outdoors, in the concourse area of the station café. Surrounded by swarming travellers and the boom of trains, Glen believed that his host had chosen the spot precisely to confer anonymity on it. And he wasn’t flattered! Gerald handed his guest the menu and added,

‘Order what you want, as we agreed’

The waitress came and took his order for burger and chips. Glen leaned back in his chair, letting one arm dangle down in a bizarre attempt to look casual. But Gerald could read the signs and knew he was the one who’d be in control throughout this lunch date,

‘And, as we agreed here’s your fee for simply turning up’

The immaculately dressed clerk took out his wallet, and withdrew a £50 note so minted and crisp it could have cut flesh. He handed it to Glen who grabbed it, folded it and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. The clerk maintained expressionless eyes. He’d already begun to hate this young man. Glen broke the silence,

‘So, what are you looking for?’

‘I, personally, am not looking for anything, from you. But I’ve become aware recently that your services were sought by my partner, and it’s about that....

‘Uh oh, not doing that, sorry, it’s your problem what you and your significant other get up to’

Gerald sat, motionless as a snake until the young man’s mini-rant had subsided, then, after a dramatic pause, he continued,

‘As I was saying, your dealings with my partner are of the slightest concern to me. However, I’m planning to give him a surprise soon, and, since I assume you have been intimate with him on at least two occasions recently, I wondered if he disclosed anything to you about preferences, fetishes, that sort of thing’

Glen’s meal had arrived and he tucked in to it, glad of an excuse to divert himself, Gerald ordered a coffee, and continued,

‘Of course, Robin may have just banged you senseless, paid up, and put you out, but I suspect that some conversation must have flowed’

Glen was amused. ‘Banged me? I don’t think so!’ It seemed the clerk was unaware his bull-queer partner had another side. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and stuffing his mouth with another forkful of chips, he returned to Gerald’s question,

‘Let’s see, now. What did he say?’

The clerk watched in painful silence as the young man finished off the chips, then devoured his burger in four or five bites.

Gerald Campfire had, from a young age, devoted himself to self improvement, and was an assiduous convert to table etiquette. For him, the business of dining with others was always an unhappy affair, tinged with nausea. People consumed too quickly, didn’t chew properly, talked as they ate and, worst of all slurped and smacked. Even with the harsh crackle of the station’s public address, and the sound of trains hammering past Gerald could hear Glen chomping, and it disgusted him. It sounded like a fat, sweating man getting up off a bench in the sauna. Glen finished the meal in around four minutes. It would have taken the clerk nearer thirty.

Glen wiped away the detritus from around his goatee. So far, his and Gerald’s eyes had met little but now they connected: the young man was gaining confidence,

‘A beer would be nice’

‘Whatever. Just order it. Now try to remember what was said to you’

Glen paused, as one recalling epic stuff,

‘He talked about those guys who get off choking themselves’

‘You mean auto-erotic asphyxiation?’

‘That’s the one. Said it was rough for the guys that got it wrong and ended up topping themselves, but the others who cracked it? Well, it must’ve been quite a trip’

The clerk took time to reflect as the waitress reappeared with his coffee and took Glen’s drink order. Then he got down to business,

‘Would you like to earn some money?’

The young man narrowed his eyes,

‘Doing that? You must be fucking joking’

‘I don’t joke. And I don’t mean you either. But I want you to find me somebody, somebody who’d be up for this auto-erotic asphyxiation?’

‘That won’t be easy’

‘You’ll be well paid’

Glen Roberts cast his eyes upwards, into the glass canopy of the vast Victorian railway station.

Is there a precise moment when evil is conceived? Is it like the so-called miracle of birth, when the sperm penetrates the egg? Has it the wonder of the universe, or the perfection of a snow flake?

No, it’s just mundane and predictable, comfortable even. And that is the real, sickening, bloody horror of it all.

‘I think I can sort this for you’

He leant back with a self satisfied look,

‘Yeah, I think I’ve got just the guy for you,’

If there is a Heaven, and angels there, then this was the moment they wept.

As it is, it is we who must weep.